Korean Dumplings - ISC cooking session (2)

Yesterday, at the International Spouses Circle (ISC) gathering, we had the second cooking session of this semester. (For the first cooking session, please see the March 3rd article). The dish we tried was Korean dumplings. Three Korean women (Jaesun, Myungsun, and HeeMyung) explained and demonstrated how to make a filling (I was totally surprised and impressed to know how many ingredients are put together in the filling for Korean dumplings - in Chinese and Japanese traditional dumplings/gyozas, we usually put only ground pork, mushroom and chinese cabbage (or chinese garlic chives) for the main ingredients, but in Korean dumplings, they put kimchee, mungbean sprouts, korean sweetpotato starch noodle and tofu to go along with the pork!), and then everyone put the filling into wrappers and shaped them together, which was a lot of fun.

Apart from the dumplings we made there, we also had a chicken-cucumber salad brought by Yen (from China) and daikon-radish sweet-and-sour pickles brought by Myungsun as appetizers. Both were very nice and people especially loved Myungsun's daikon pickles. We have a similar daikon-radish sweet-and-sour pickles in Japan too, but I never imagined that this dish can be so popular among people from different countries, especially among those from the Western culture. Well, I was totally wrong and am happy to find it out ;-)


(left: Three teachers of the day: Myungsun, HeeMyung and Jaesun right: Daikon-radish pickles that were so popular!)


(left: Enjoying eating and chatting... right: Sandy, the organizer of the ISC)

Flamenco Demonstration

Yesterday (Thursday March 29th) I danced flamenco for a demonstration at International Spouses' Circle at IU International Center - it was the first occasion I danced flamenco in Bloomington, and after as long as one year of absence of flamenco in my life since I left Japan last May. I started taking flamenco lessons about 10 years ago, and although there were couple of times I couldn't take classes for several months for various reasons, this is the longest absence of flamenco in my life in these past 10 years. (I'm not doing any flamenco now here in Bloomington because I haven't found any good teacher around here.)
After this demonstration, it made me realize how much I have missed flamenco... but well, I was also very happy to have had this opportunity to dance it as a presentation for friends, and with someone else who can also dance Sevillanas (which is both a flamenco dance and a folk dance in South Spain).

It turned out that Tamara, a Spanish girl from Madrid, also dances Sevillanas. Though she is not from South Spain where most people can dance Sevillanas, she has learned to dance sevillanas and some flamenco in childhood since her family loves flamenco.
After some wonderings I decided to put on one of my flamenco dresses I brought from Japan, for otherwise I probably may end up not wearing them ever again! So I brought one dress for myself and a manton (big scarf used for flamenco) and a flamenco skirt for Tamara. And I think I made a right decision - both Tamara and I were glad that we wore the dresses; it is always so much better to perform in real costumes for a presentation! (The only problem was that my hairdo was messed up a short while after starting dancing, as you can see in the pictures above and below. I wish I was better at doing my hair @@;)

The presentation was very successful and both Tamara and I enjoyed dancing togehter a lot! Thanks to Amy, a friend of mine, who came to see the presentation that day and took a lot of pictures of us dancing, I have some photos to share here.
Thank you Tamara for dancing with me, and thank you Amy for the great photos :-)

The International Spouses Circle (ISC)'s gathering that day was an "International Dance Session", and we also enjoyed Sandy's salsa and melange workshop, and Maya's Egiptian/Middle-Eastern dance workshop as well. It was a lot of fun! Thank you Sandy for organizing the event and International Spouses' Circle (^^).


(About these small pictures: Left: Amy took this picture without me noticing it at all, and I found this portrait quite artistic. Right: Amy and me.)

ISC (International Spouses Circle)'s cooking session (1)

I started attending International Spouses Circle organized by IU International Center last month (in February). ISC is an informal gathering group of spouses who are from foreign countries (like myself) and/or those whose spouses are from foreign countries. We meet once or twice a month, usually around lunch time, at IU International Center, and various activities such as International cooking session (in which we teach each other traditional dishes of different cultures and countries), and international dance workshop, watching films, etc.

Today's gathering was the first cooking session of this semester, and we had Ravit from Israel teaching us "Hummus" (= a chickpea/garvanzo beans paste widely eaten in Middle-East countries) and Nashwa from Egypt teaching us "Ful Medames" (= an Egyptian traditional beans dish). Both were very tasty and we enjoyed them with some pita bread supplied by the International Center. I found it quite funny when Nashwa explained the health benefits of beans (and therefore of Ful Medames), since it was exactly what I would mostly like to do myself ;-)


(Left: Hummus dished for serving Right: Nashwa cooking Ful Medames)


(left: Ful Medames cooking in a pot Right: Ravit's baby who entertained everyone during the session)